


live through this (and you won't look back)

by uro_boros



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Marco is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:32:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uro_boros/pseuds/uro_boros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moving on feels impossible when everything else is still fresh. But it happens, and it's not a bad thing--a series of short stories dealing with grief and life after loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	live through this (and you won't look back)

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a collection of short stories most likely (because I'm awful at anything else). Marco plays the role of the dead boyfriend.
> 
> Eren is kinda hot.

"It’s called moving on," Eren says bluntly, elbows pressed to Jean’s pock-marked dinner table, honestly too small to fit more than two people comfortably (Jean had found it on craigslist, when Marco and he had first moved into the small apartment on the terrible-side of town; Marco had eyed it cautiously, until Jean had leaned over to kiss him and said  _it’s about building a life together, from the start,_ and then had added, raising an eyebrow and grinning,  _we can break it in_ ). 

Jean stands, moving to the sink to wash their dishes. “I don’t want to move on.”

Eren looks briefly pained, before his expression hardens. “You don’t really get a choice in the matter, you know. It happens. Grief is a—”

"—process? Save it. I’ve heard it. I have a therapist who tells me that every week." Sometimes twice a week, actually, in between friends and family saying the same. He’d changed his number twice after Marco died, but people found it regardless.

Mostly because of Eren. Eren, who pounded at Jean’s door until his fists bled, screaming,  _isolating yourself isn’t going to fucking work, Jean,_ until his voice got hoarse and cracked and turned to nothing more than a raspy whisper.

(Jean always let him in—hours later, sometimes, Eren furious and tightly-drawn until he saw Jean sleep-deprived and skinny and all his anger crumpled away into rough concern)

"It happens," Eren says quietly. "You don’t mean for it to. But it always does, it sneaks up on you. And it’s not fair, it never is, Jean, but sooner or later, you’re going to pack up his clothes because they no longer smell like him. You’ll keep the pictures but they’ll go in an album you only pull out on special occasions. The visits to the grave will go from once a day to once a week to maybe a few times a year. You’ll forget and you’ll move on, and you’ll be okay."

There’s a dull throb in Jean’s head. And his hand—somehow, the glass he was holding breaks, cutting into his hand. Oh, his thoughts are distant, you did that, you broke it. 

The pain is nothing like the pain in his heart, burning at his eyes, raw and red in his throat. “What the fuck,” he enunciates slowly, croaking on the words, “what the fuck do you know?”

It’s not a fair question. Eren watched his mother die and everyone knows it. Grief has a way of being peculiarly selfish. 

"Marco would want you to move on," Eren tells him simply. His hands flutter across the scarred surface of the craigslist table—Marco’s table, where Jean had once loved him and held him and thought they had forever together. They didn’t, and maybe Jean had been naive to believe they ever had, but Marco had made him feel real.

He feels dull now, empty and hollowed out, like what’s left of him is a shell of something that once had burned bright and hot and alive. The ache in his chest is worse because what Eren said is true (Marco’s sweaters smell like moth-balls, like Jean’s cologne and soap, like the back of the closet and detergent, like _forgetting_ and  _moving on_ )

"You should go," Jean says firmly. "You should—really  _go_.”

"Okay." Eren holds his hands up, placating. "I’ll, um. Be back tomorrow. With more food. Mikasa said she would come too, if you wanted. We can watch a movie."

"Okay," Jean intones. Everything throbs painfully—arguing feels too hard.

Eren leaves, closing the door gently behind him. He gives Jean one last look before he goes, searching, but what he finds must not satisfy him. Jean focuses on the sluggish bleeding of his hand.

After, he goes and lays down. The bed feels too vast and the world too empty. Marco’s impression has long since faded from the mattress.

Jean cries.

(but it’s just grief, and the pain doesn’t last—it comes quick, momentarily blinding, and it hurts too bad that it’s hard to breathe; if nothing lasts forever, not even love, loss will certainly give way as well)

(in the morning, you’ll be able to breathe again)


End file.
